I’m a little lost on how to begin module 3. Do I need to write a new literature review for this module? Or can I refine a problem statement and research questions etc. and go from there?

The idea behind the course is that you use modules you’ve worked on in future ones, so you are absolutely encouraged to use the problem statement you came up with in Module #1 and the literature review you came up with in Module #2.

Essentially, I’m asking you in Module #3 to come up with a research method for collecting qualitative data to answer a specific research question. Think about the gap you identified for your literature review. What unanswered questions can you identify from that gap? Then think about a way you could collect qualitative data to answer those questions, such as by conducting interviews, focus groups, usability tests, a field study with a specific group of people (i.e. professionals in a particular industry, teachers, students, non-profit staff or volunteers, etc.) and/or collecting specific documents.

That being said, you can pick a different research problem for each module, but yes: you’ll need to repeat the steps from the first two modules: coming up with a research problem and then reviewing literature. These are essential steps for designing a research study, which is what we’re practicing in this class (and what you’ll be asked to do for the final project).

In module 3, should I identify a specific organization or is it better to keep this assignment more general? E.g. research participants will be employees of a large organization (more than 5,000 employees), or research participants will be employees of New Hanover Regional Medical Center.

Either is fine for the purposes of this module, but the more specific you can make it, the better. If you were to really run this study, for example, you would recruit real, live people. So, if you have real, live people in mind, why not mention them?

Do we still use the same research problem that we used in the literature review or a different problem that it highlights?

From here, you can shift if you want. If you get interested in something else, that’s fine. The final project will be a plan for a research study, so you have until then to experiment.

Someone emailed me the following question and I thought others might have the same one

If [an article is] not clearly labeled a research article, is there something specific I can look for to know for sure it is and will work for this assignment?

Answer

You’re learning that “research” is kind of a bit wonky in this field when compared to others (such as the hard sciences or social sciences). And yes, some of our journals are not consistently formatted.
A clue as to whether something is a research article:

• Does the article mention collecting actual data?
• Does it call itself a research study or (sometimes just ‘a study’)?
• Does it mention a specific research method, such as “a survey of x,” “interviews with y,” or “systematic analysis of z”?
• Does it mention reporting research findings?

Hope that helps.